Assignment - Palermo (2 page)

His real name was Francois, and he was the son of a migrant Texas Irish wildcatter and the Cajun daughter of one of Peche Rouge’s leading families. He made an odd mixture of Acadian French and Irish. Last night Durell had seen photos of him from the Bureau’s files. He had grown into a lean whip of a man, with gray in his dark straw hair, hollow cheeks, with a wariness in his blue eyes. But the infectious and reckless smile still curved his sensuous mouth, and the mockery still glinted in O’Malley’s cat’s eyes, even in the dossier’s blurred and formal clippings.

“Your friend O’Malley,” McFee said abruptly, “is a hoodlum pretending to a sudden access of patriotism.” “He’s a gambler,” Durell said. “There’s a difference. He started young. Opened a gambling ship off Galveston. He’s made more money in one night than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. He’s had enough enemies, but he stayed clean and alive, and the big syndicate people took him in, I understand.”

“His two friends—” McFee said distastefully, and paused.

According to the dossiers that had kept Durell awake the night before, Bruno Brutelli was an ex-wrestler who had killed a man in the ring and became a collection enforcer for the syndicate. Joey Milan, a wizened little ex-jockey, was barred from every race track in the country for a long list of violations. The records were unsavory. And yet—

“O’Malley has a good war record,” Durell said. “Vietnam for ten months. Special Forces A Team at Ank Dap, working the Cambodian Border in the Highlands, fighting VC and Viet Minh down from Hanoi. Ten months in the jungle, General. He saw what the Congs do to the villagers there. He took some metal in his leg and sat it out in a Japanese hospital for two more months before he returned to Las Vegas and his gambling joint some weeks ago. According to the records, he found everything changed.”

McFee slashed at another dandelion head. His eyes were bleak under the pink cherry blossoms. Tourists walked by, swinging their cameras. “You’ve got to find them, Cajun,” said the gray man. “Find them before they kill themselves or get killed.”

“Somewhere in Europe?”

“We know O’Malley and his two friends landed in Switzerland. You find out just where. Get to them. Verify O’Malley’s story. Get to the upper echelons who’ve put the mark on those three men. Smash it. And do it quickly.” McFee was urgent, anxious.

“It’s not a nice job,” he added. “Perhaps more distasteful than most. Touchy, because the Bureau properly belongs in it, too. You may have to kill them, Samuel, rather than let Kronin get them. And you must be careful,” McFee added mildly, “not to let Kronin get you first.”

Six weeks ago there had been an explosion in a vital defense plant that manufactured components for infrared missile detection devices used in the new DF-4 jets allocated to Southeast Asia. It was the only factory in the country that fabricated these parts. The explosion delayed production for three weeks. The FBI investigated quietly, without publicity, and reported it as a case of sabotage.

One week later the water supply of a Midwestern town on the Ohio was found polluted by a contaminant that caused extreme dietary distress among the population. It was quickly corrected. But it could have been worse. The contaminant might easily have been a deadly poison.

Again the classified files of the FBI reported strong suspicion of sabotage.

Top secret blueprints in a NASA office in Houston were found to have been moved and presumed to have been stolen long enough to be photographed before being replaced.

A wildcat strike of a small local union heavily dominated by criminal elements delayed production for five weeks on the new M-14 rifles destined for the Vietnam fighting.

A top biological warfare technician attached to the Colorado research unit vanished for two weeks and was found in a hut in the mountains, brutally tortured and murdered.

There were others.

“It’s organized,” General McFee said quietly. He waggled his blackthorn at the Washington Monument. “There was something in O’Malley’s story when he told the FBI clerk, after asking for you, that he found everything changed in the syndicate he worked for, after he came home from Vietnam. O’Malley may be a thief with a heart of gold—”

“He’s a gambler,” Durell corrected stubbornly.

“Yes, yes. And a member of the Fratelli della Notte. The Brothers of the Night.”

“I never heard of them, sir.”

“A euphemism, Samuel, for the same type of outlaw organization as the Mafia, the Cosa Nostra, what-have-you. O’Malley claimed he was on the run, with his two friends, because he refused to go along with new orders that slanted all their operations toward planned sabotage. He claimed that all the things that had happened to date were simply test forays. To check feasibility and probabilities of success. The network is enormous. It stands poised to cripple every part of the country at any moment deemed desirable by this nation’s enemies. It’s a knife at our jugular vein. It is dangerous. It is critical. It must be stopped. And you will stop it.”

McFee paused. Durell said nothing.

“O’Malley reported,” said McFee, “new faces and new people in the Fratelli top ranks. And new orders. Until then, he said, he ran an honest shop at his casino.” McFee grimaced slightly. “Bruno Brutelli worked as a strong-arm collector for the numbers operation in Los Angeles. And Joey Milan, the jockey, was back at his old business as a second-story man. He is a human fly, apparently. His orders sent him into many places but not to steal money. He went in for data on power plants, defense factories, missile silos, city water supplies. You name it, Cajun, and you have it.”

“Then, why didn’t the FBI take O’Malley’s information at face value?”

“It came before all the evidence had been collated through their computers. A clerk interviewed him. O’Malley asked for you. He couldn’t know about K Section, of course. All he knew was that you worked in some such organization. Of course, when no information was available about you, he walked out. Twenty-four hours later a hold order was broadcast for him. It was too late. He had flown to Europe with his friends.”

“I wonder why?” Durell murmured.

“That’s for you to find out. They’re after him. His outfit, the Fratelli della Notte, considers him a traitor. A defector. He’s marked for death. You can save him— or kill him, if necessary, however the truth comes out.” “O’Malley is an old friend,” Durell said.

“Can you do it?” McFee asked.

“If I have to.”

“Can you find him?”

“I’ll find him.”

“Do so—before Kronin gets him.” McFee waggled his potent walking stick again. There was a small phosphorus bomb in it, tear gas, a dagger, a pistol—all built into the innocent blackthorn. They were anonymous in the throngs of strolling tourists who had arrived in the District for the Cherry Blossom Festival. McFee went on. “The Cosa Nostra, the Mafia, the Fratelli —a rose by any other name, Samuel. I admire your loyalty to old friends, and yet I deplore it. O’Malley’s organization is on a sabotage footing—for when, as, and if. And it’s being run by Karl Kronin. And now Kronin knows about you.” McFee’s gray eyes touched Durell’s hard face briefly. “You’ve tangled with Kronin a few times, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but not successfully.”

“There was a leak in the Bureau somewhere. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know that O’Malley went calling on the cops for you. O’Malley doesn’t know our business, but Kronin certainly does. How close did he come to you last night?”

“There were two tries in the last two days.” Durell felt no warmth in the sunshine as he remembered it. “Not very imaginative. But they’ll get better. One was a taxi that apparently blew a tire and ran up on a sidewalk and almost greased me to the wall. Last night was a little touchier. It was a faked Code B message from you. So I left my apartment at one o’clock in the morning. There’s a park across from the building, and the gunman was waiting there. Standard silencer equipment. I picked it up afterward, and the lab boys have the weapon now—a Russian PP SH. Luckily for me, he missed the first shot because a car came around the corner and intervened. I never gave him a chance for the second shot.”

“But the assassin got away?”

“Clean. The park is big and dark at that hour.”

“You must be very careful, Samuel. Kronin will do anything to keep you from contacting O’Malley and getting the rest of his information. You must work fast. If Kronin senses defeat, he may push the button, activate his entire—ah—mob, and do inestimable damage to the nation. Spread panic. Economic chaos. Political disaster. Joint Chiefs and the White House kept me up half the night last night, while you—ah—had your stroll in the park. I’d like you to stay alive, Samuel.”

Durell permitted himself a small smile. “Are you worried about me, General?”

“Any man can be replacecL^But it takes time. I trust you’ve studied Kronin's dossier thoroughly. You fly tonight to Europe to find O’Malley.”

“I know all about Kronin,” Durell said.

He remembered every word of the dossier. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last thing he ever remembered.

SUMMARY, K Section File 22 Zeta 5:---

Kronin. Karl Antonescue, alias Johan Borg, alias Pavel Vanek, alias Pierre Dumas, alias Donald Dunn, alias Kapek Kromsky:

Age: 42

Birth: Believed born Sofia, Bulgaria, 1924, father a merchant shot by Nazi counterintelligence units Abwehr 1942, August. Mother d. tuberculosis Soviet prison camp Novokirsk, Siberia, 1951. No siblings.

Education: Sorbonne, Paris, geology degree, transferred law and political science. Two years Egypt, Saudi Arabia, followed by term in Prague. Merchandising enterprises throughout Europe, international oil trade, finance.

Description: Six feet, four inches, eyes brown, bald, brachycephalic, wounded by guerillas Greek Civil War running guns to both sides. Left leg amputated above knee. Uses prosthetic aluminum limb of own design. Slight limp. Above average strength, intelligence, health. IQ Sorbonne: 159.

Analysis: It is known that subject is an active, independent agent dealing in military and political and economic intelligence, selling data to highest bidders without moral or political scruple. Headquarters a villa near Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland. Swiss authorities have no evidence to inhibit activity or deport. Subject suspected head of assassin organization for political effect in Congo, Nigeria, Southeast Asia, France, Morocco, Poland. Believed owner of gambling casinos in Riviera, Spain, Italy.

Suspected by U. S. Narcotics Bureau of operating the Green Line of opium smuggling from Red China via Lebanon to South America, possesses strong links with criminal organizations in the U. S.

History: No arrests. No photographs. Operates with known murderer, Anton p.ugale if, A1 b an i an member Starjek Cell Number Six:

Prognosis: Subject is most dangerous. As an independent agent, cannot be trusted for operations of any kind. His organization is believed responsible for the disappearance of three K Section operatives from Geneva Central, London Control, and Naples Central. His known personal appetites for women, money, and luxury are subject to private perversions. He is believed responsible for the disablement and retirement of Colonel A. G. Mignon of Section C2/Theta. (See File Theta 22/6.)

Instructions: K.O.S.*

*Kill On Sight

DURELL put on dark green sunglasses and nodded to the heavy-hipped servant woman who closed the bronze gate of Mignon’s villa after him. It was almost noon. He had a rented black Caravelle, parked close to the ornately trimmed shrubbery alongside the black-topped road. He looked to the right and left and up the steep pitch of the wooded mountainside that rose up out of the lake shore. Nothing. No one. The birds sang. A squirrel chattered. The sound of a boat motor echoed up from the glittering surface of the water. It was hot and breathless in the lee of the villa, where the breeze could not reach him. The scruffy palm trees in the garden at his back reached dusty feathers to the Ticino sky.

But something was out of focus.

He had checked in at Geneva Central yesterday, when his jet landed there, and conferred with Arnie Thompson, the K Section resident in the bookshop on the Grande Rue of the old quarter, near the cathedral. Thompson had arranged for the little black car. Its radio, he explained, was two-way; the special frequency would always get someone at the Geneva listening post. Thompson had no information on Kronin’s headquarters at Lugano except to say that it was reported deserted and Kronin abroad somewhere. Arnie had wanted him to give up his snub-barreled .38 S&W and use a Walthers instead, but Durell had declined. He preferred the feel of the .38 in its inner holster just under his left armpit. It did not bulge in his dark blue suit.

Something was different.

He could sense the change since he had gone into the villa an hour ago. The shadows had shifted, the sun was higher, the road curving to the left and into the nearby tunnel high above the lake was in bright sunlight now. The tunnel mouth looked darker.

He did not glance about overtly asTie turned to the parked car on the grass -verge beside the road. But all his instincts were suddenly honed to a painfully sharp intensity.

He was being watched.

He had left a briefcase on the leather bucket seat under the red plastic wheel. There was nothing important in it. Without touching it, he saw that the case had been moved. Only an inch, but it was enough.

It could have been a child passing by. A potential thief, who found himself disappointed. Perhaps one of Colonel Mignon’s servants had been curious.

He didn’t think it was any of these things.

Up in the conifers that grew on the mountainside above the highway tunnel something moved. It might have been the wind, causing a shift of shadows. But something glinted briefly where sunlight touched metal. He tried to identify it from the tail of his eye but could not without looking directly at the place and he did not want to give away his awareness just yet.

Except for the briefcase, the car seemed untouched. He got in and put the key in the ignition but did not turn it. He sat for a moment, taking his time, aware of a sudden dryness in his mouth. Then he slid out again and walked around the small car to the rear engine hood. His heart suddenly thumped a little faster than usual.